Tag Archives: George Graham

The Arsenal and Me – Hashim’s Story

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I almost became a Chav. I actually thought that Zola was the best player ever to play the beautiful game. I knew about Chelsea players more than the likes of Wright, Lee Dixon, Kevin Campbell, Merson, Bould, Alan Smith, George Graham etc. for the sole reason I grew up surrounded by Chelsea fans and watched some of their matches and only the odd Arsenal game.

It was difficult to watch any Arsenal matches back then. We didn’t have that coverage to such matches easily. You know the technological problems of a 3rd world country like Kenya in the 90s and I was just 5 yrs old then! I had never heard of a mobile phone back then let alone the internet or cable television, imagine! Most of the information about the EPL came from reading the daily newspapers which will be a day or two late!

I only read about The Arsenal signing the likes of Bergkamp, AW, Petit etc. in the papers. I also read about the 1998 double in the papers though I had watched just two matches that campaign one against Southampton I remember! At least I was ten back then and running away from extra tuition and Madrassa classes to just go watch football would earn one a thorough beating.

Good thing though that was a world cup year and everyone watched the world cup. I came to know more about Bergkamp, Petit and Vieira from just watching the world cup matches. We later signed Henry and Davor Suker; Croatia and France top scorers in that tournament. Sadly, I didn’t get to watch them play for The Arsenal as I had now moved to the upper classes and needed to concentrate a lot more on my studies. Thanks goodness I only read about the 6-1 loss to Utd in the papers!

In Feb 2002, I joined a national school in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya for my secondary school education. It was there that I met Ian Kipchirchir, a devoted Gooner and my transformation to a fully pledged Arsenal fan was complete. He sneaked a small portable radio to school and we would listen to the 5 o’clock BBC live commentary every Saturday and the midnight sports news in midweek just to know how The Arsenal had fared. It was risky as it would lead to 2 weeks suspension if we were caught but who cared!

I could now watch more games when I was on holiday or not in school. It was now easy to catch the matches at the local joint as many people now had cable television coverage. I became completely engrossed in football and The Arsenal. I didn’t want to miss a single match. I would stay late into the night or walk long distances just to find a place to watch The Arsenal play. What a team we had then.

The years 1996-2005 were great years. The squad was complete. It was composed of players with great technical ability and just sheer physical strength. It was a great blend of players who complemented one another very well. It didn’t matter whether we lost key players because they were adequately replaced. The desire and passion to win was just vivid and add to it the panache in the overall team play. Winning was the only thing.

The years that followed that very successful period were very difficult as the club underwent many changes. The summer of 2005 saw an overhaul of the squad. The old guard was replaced by unproven precocious players and saw the shift from big, tall players to small, technical players. This came just after the greatest achievement for the club and English football; going the whole season unbeaten and just before moving to the new stadium. I really thought we would dominate English football for years to come after such an achievement. I was wrong…

The approach the club took their after was not the best at least in my opinion. Trophies were replaced by the ‘top four trophy’, returning injured players became LANS which was the biggest flaw in AW’s management in that same period, average players became overpaid, signing quality players became a taboo, the young players would be killed if better and proven players were signed, the cups lost their importance, more players became susceptible to injuries and would be sidelined for longer periods leaving the squad even thinner, change of formation and we started selling our star players without adequate replacements or completely fail to replace them.

In a nutshell the winning mentality was gone. Excuses for poor performances became the order of the day. Most players were average and/or not suitable to play the Wengerball. Players started being played out of position. Same tactics were used regardless of opposition and most players were almost similar to one another with absolutely no squad depth. For eight consecutive seasons our capitulation was just as similar as the season past yet nothing was done about it. Mistakes were never learnt and have never been even this 2013/14 season.

We always dither in the transfer market. Indecision and penny-pinching takes the better of our manager in the transfer window and still refuses to address the glaring problems of the team. 9 seasons since we last won a trophy the squad still has one 2/3 players short more notably a super striker and a proper winger. OG is a good player but we will never win the league with him as our main striker even if he were to stay fit the whole season. By our own standards he is not the best out there. Can we do better? Absolutely…

This season we can win the league but let us not deceive ourselves that this already thin squad can sustain a title challenge. Let 2007/08 be a great lesson. We must sign another striker and he should be better than what we have. Hope we win something this season. The whole team and the fans deserve it.

That said it is easy to brush aside the overseas fan base just because we’ve never stood on the terraces of the North Bank at Highbury nor been to the Grove but we share the same passion. We win we bask in the same glory; we lose we share the same pain and angst. I am Arsenal and always will be…

Hashim

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The Arsenal and Me – Fingers’ Story

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Now being a young lad from the leafy suburbs of the East End of the district line I grew up surrounded by all things West Ham in the late 70’s. However, my uncle born and breed Islington man had the foresight of introducing me to a club called The Arsenal. He told me about the history, the badge, showed me old and current programmes talked about the 71 double year (the year before I was born) and by the age of six I was hooked listing to the radio for scores on a Saturday and waiting for the final scores, and of course pestering my uncle to take me to a game who used to reply “when your old man says you can come I will take you”

May 1978 Arsenal played Ipswich in an FA Cup final (again asked about going cried when I was not allowed). However, I was allowed to decorate the front window in Arsenal Yellow and Blue rosette and pictures of Brady etc. Day of the game, I woke up early put my Arsenal scarf on and took every minute of the build up on TV. in those days the FAC final was a massive event and one of the only live sporting events you could see on TV. Well at 5pm I was devastated and knew when I went to school on Monday I would have all the Alf Garnets giving it to me. However, my love for The Arsenal was not dampened.

1979 we got to the final again same routine same answers but what made it worse was my dad went with my uncle, in later life I would discover my oldman was a Manc !!!!! This time we won I was dancing around the front room singing songs and felt 10 feet tall on Monday at school.

1980 we got to the final again but was playing a division 2 team called West Ham!!!! For what seemed ages every lunch time I was sent to the Headmaster for fighting. You guessed it, I was sticking up for my team, my obsession, my Arsenal. I knew I would not be allowed to go as got told at the semi final stage but when I asked my mum if I could do the front window in yellow and blue like the last two years seeing their faces was a picture, in the end it was half as the other half had to be claret and blue or my brothers.

My dad tells me know that every night our house was budded (for the younger generation this is where you pick a rose bud throw it at a window and run). Well we lost, more fights at school and Wednesday we lost in another cup final, my world was falling apart.

In 1982 after years of nagging and, aged 10, I was taken to my first Arsenal game at Highbury. The opposition that day was West Ham United. Now for a first game it was so exciting I remember approaching the ground seeing the large crowds, the smell of burgers stools selling Arsenal scarves, etc, being told to stay close to my uncle and then going to our seats in the East upper, seeing the pitch, the crowds the noise. I think Fever Pitch really did capture that moment very well, oh and then an orange smoke bomb with all hell breaking lose in the North Bank with people being carried out or arrested for about 20 mins. I was hooked, I asked my uncle was it like this every week.

I then went on the odd occasion but by the time I was 13 I was travelling into Highbury for every home game using all my paper round money to get there and in (I earned £7 a week) and I still had change when I came home, I was hooked and just coming into a George Graham years. My favourite years of following Arsenal so many firsts for me, seeing us win a trophy Littlewoods cup 1987, first league title 1989 (I was lucky enough to be at Anfield), first FAC Sheffield Wednesday, first time in Europe Standard Leige away (now that’s a story in itself) the list goes on.

I have seen us lose cup finals in this country and foreign lands, win doubles and as an Arsenal fan have probably seen there greatest moments in their history live and all because my uncle has the foresight to teach me that once The Arsenal is in you it will never be the same.

I don’t go as much now (I still do the Euro away’s, with my son) as the club I fell in love with and spent tens of thousands following has changed. I no longer feel part of it, although I still meet my mates that I have made through Arsenal and that bond will never die. Its true The Arsenal will never truly leave me, it’s on my skin, its in my heart, and has shaped so much of my life. So I end this piece with these words “thank you uncle Tom for showing me The Arsenal roll out that red carpet.”

Fingers

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The Arsenal and Me – Lee’s Story

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OK so when I first said I’d write a piece on why I love the Arsenal I assumed it would short and sweet. Something along the lines of “I was born into the Arsenal family” or “it’s who I am and all I’ve ever been” which may sound strange coming from a bloke born and raised in the Lake District, where football allegiances tend to be formed more by the fact “they’re Northern and doing well” rather than they’re my local team or my families team. But the fact remains this is the way it is, and that is the way I am. The bigger question is why is it that I love the Arsenal instead of one of the Northern teams? Those football “giants” that have sat atop the football ladder. The teams from Manchester and Liverpool who all my childhood mates supported. The teams that I made it my business to mock, insult, and endlessly wish failure upon.

Looking back I guess it was inevitable that I’d love Arsenal Football Club. There is no doubt that if I had to give just one reason for this it would be that my family have roots in North London. My Dad was born and raised in Islington, and for 40 years lived in the area. The Arsenal was a part of his, his parents and his siblings’ lives.

Soon after I got to thinking about this topic I realised that this alone wasn’t enough, after all my mum supported George Best and United, and her Brother was a Liverpool fan (who bought me giant Liverpool soft toy as a christening “gift”, which was in landfill soon after I learned how to read). Add to this the fact that peer pressure is a massive part of any young lads life and being born in 1986 there had to be more than one reason I didn’t just fall in line and support United or Liverpool like all my mates. My Dad was indisputably the driving force behind my love for the club but other factors increased my feelings towards the Arsenal.

The first Christmas I remember is 1991 and the only gift I can remember getting was the full arsenal home kit. I remember thinking it was incredible, the excitement of putting it on and posing in it, ecstatic to be wearing the famous red and white. Other early memories of the Arsenal include the 93 domestic cup double. Of course I remember my favourite players Wright, Adams, Merson, Seaman, Jensen and Limpar amongst others. Whenever my primary school had a fancy dress event I went as an arsenal player (my blond hair meant that Lee Dixon was the obvious pick, as much as I’d have loved to have gone as Wrighty it just never seemed plausible)

All of the above set the tone, but the first time I properly knew I “loved” the arsenal was in February 1995 when I went to Highbury for the first time, 8 years old. I remember the day before the game seeing George Graham walking out of the most amazing building, approaching him with my Dad and chatting to him for a couple of minutes. The fact that this man, the club’s manager would stop to give time to a bloke and his kids said it all, knowing now what was around the corner for Mr Graham speaks volumes of the respect he had for the club, its fans and dare I even say what the “arsenal way” of doing things should be. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’ll never forget that day. The manager signed a merchandise catalogue I had in hand and was on his way, my uncle later told me to look after it as he’d be gone before long (how right he was).

The next day I went to my first match, the whole day was incredible, it didn’t matter that I had an obscured view I’d never been as excited in my life. I was sat inside Highbury watching my team live for the first time, I heard as Ian Selley broke his leg, I watched on as Merson scored and I saw us inevitably throw it away and concede a sloppy goal to draw 1-1 with Leicester City. I remember seeing my name on the scoreboard and the stadium announcer read the same message “Arsenal Football Club would like to welcome Lee Upton on his first trip to Highbury” these memories are imprinted in my mind. Arsenal were classy, the stadium was classy, hell everything down to the tiles in the toilets was classy. I remember having to write a piece of homework about the best day of my life and writing this same story down then, almost twenty years ago.

OK so some could say that other clubs would have been the same, as a northern born Gooner I’ve had my fair share of experience with certain northern teams. When I was young I went to soccer schools, these week long events included a trip to a Premier League ground and training facility. We always seemed to have to go to Old Trafford. I remember my first year going to United’s training ground, nothing was classy, from the welcome, to the make shift stewards right down to the players, who were more concerned about not getting a scratch on their car than they were talking to fans. It was awful, I didn’t want to be there, and they didn’t want me there. I got some autographs took them home, sold them to some glory boys and used the money to get my latest home shirt printed with our newest additions name and number (BERGKAMP 10), that was it, all I cared about was the Arsenal nothing else came close.

There was no doubt about it then, I was in love with Highbury, with London and most importantly with Arsenal Football Club, and those feelings grew stronger over the years, going to more and games with my Parents, home and away. Watching Mr Wenger come in and build some amazing sides with some unbelievable players. Going off to University just after the invincible’s had lifted the title and meeting some like minded fans to go on away days with. My love for The Arsenal was still as strong as it was in February 1995 nothing had ever, nor could ever have knocked it. Arguing with Northerners about Schmeichel/Seaman, Shearer/Wright, Sheringham/Bergkamp, Keane/Vieira, Van Nistelrooy/Henry was what growing up was about for me and I loved every minute of it because I loved the arsenal and everything about it.

So there it is, I love Arsenal Football club primarily because of my family, because of the players, because of Highbury, because of class, because of rivalry, because of mates, because of the friendly touches that meant I knew I belonged, because being at a game was about as good as got, and because of everything that THE ARSENAL represented.

I’m going to end by talking about my feelings today. Do I still love Arsenal? Of course I do. Do I still have unwavering support for the 11 wearing red and white or yellow and blue? (or purple?) absolutely. I used to support everything about the club no matter what and to hell with everyone else. It’s here, this element that has unfortunately changed over the last few years. The Arsenal I fell in love with because of my old man and because of the classy place that was Highbury and because of the family friendly feel around the whole club has slowly been chipped away at, which means that today more than ever I question the club I love and not because I only care about what they win on the pitch, but because of how much I love everything about the club. I hate the fact that I’m left unsure about what it is I support, the identity of Arsenal Football Club seems less clear cut than it was 20 years ago.

While I know that I will give unconditional support for the team I love in the future, I go full circle to the point I made at the start.

I stated that on its own the fact my family were Arsenal fans may not have been enough for me to fall in love with the club. I have a fear that if I have kids my love and passion may not be enough to get them to feel the way I do about my club. The little touches that engaged, maintained and multiplied generations of the same family to come together in common feelings seem to be on the decline. I hope that I’m wrong and the future generations of my family share my love, but I no longer view it as a certainty.

Lee